How to Walk Away From All Your Crosswind Landings

By Doug Daniel

I was recently asked about the possibility of a wingtip strike when landing in a typical light plane like a Cherokee or a Cessna 172. Specifically, I was asked about how far the aileron control could be deflected without hitting the tarmac when one or both of the main landing gear is on the runway after landing at near stall speeds.

I will admit that I have never tried to hit the runway with my wing tip and I don't know anyone who has. However, it certainly can be done. Perhaps a better question is: what landing technique will guarantee that the wingtip does not strike the tarmac in a crosswind?

I want to talk about landing techniques in a really strong crosswind before I tackle the issue of wingtip strikes. After all, wingtip strikes are not a credible issue except in crosswinds that approach the airplane's crosswind limitations.

To make controlled crosswind landings, you should master the skill of pointing your airplane in the same direction that it moves over the ground. If the airplane is pointed in some other direction when you touchdown, the best you can hope for is abrupt side forces on your landing gear followed with a swerve as the airplane swings in the right direction. The worst is loss of directional control followed with a trip off the side of the runway, possible ground loop, nose over, wingtip strike, or all of the above

Pointing the airplane it the direction it moves is the most essential landing skill. It is not as easy as it sounds. And it certainly requires practice before it can be mastered. In a nutshell, here is how to do it:

Point the airplane in the direction that it travels by turning the nose with your rudder pedals alone. Move the airplane from side to side by changing your angle of bank with ailerons. Control airspeed or height above the runway by changing your pitch attitude with your elevator. This lets you keep your wheels pointed in the direction the airplane moves and keep your airplane directly over the middle of the runway. This is exactly where you should be when you land.

Landing in a crosswind, you touch the runway while cross controlled. This is a steady state condition. Your airplane is not rolling around its long axis. That is to say that it has a steady angle of bank. In a general aviation, production light plane, you cannot cross control far enough to touch the wing tip.

The technique that works best is to try to keep the downwind main wheel barely off the runway as long as possible after you have touched down with the upwind wheel. To hold the downwind wheel off, you must continuously increase aileron control defection until it reaches its limit. Eventually, as the airplane continues to slow down, the ailerons lose power and the other main wheel will settle onto the runway.

Finally in any well executed crosswind landing, the aileron control will be pushed to its limit. An important point here is, that just like any other aspect of good airmanship, you should move your controls smoothly and with the purpose of changing the airplane's attitude. A snap roll is the only situation where I deliberately move the controls violently.

Now, back to the subject: how might you strike a wingtip? I can think of two ways.

Suppose you suddenly and violently slapped the aileron control all the way to its limit. Two things would happen: the airplane would no longer be properly cross controlled, and it would start to roll. Now it is possible to strike the wingtip. In other words, you would have just fouled up a perfectly good crosswind landing. You would have put the airplane in a very difficult situation, one that would require a particularly skilled pilot to salvage. I don't recommend it.

The more likely situation is that you land wings level in a strong crosswind. That is to say, not cross controlled. Here, the airplane is crabbed into the wind and the wheels are not aligned with the airplane's path over the ground. Because the airplane is not aligned with its path through space, the wheels will generate a very strong side ways force on the undercarriage when they touch the runway. With luck, this results in a sideways skid. Just like in a car, if the wheels are far enough apart, the airplane skids until it either stops or straightens up. If the wheels are not far enough apart, you're unlucky. The airplane rolls over, striking the ground with its wingtip.

The lesson here is: use proper crosswind techniques and you will not need to worry about wingtip strikes.

Doug Daniel, long time flight instructor, invites you to visit http://www.FlyingSecretsRevealed.com/flying_questions/ for more flying articles like this one. You may also feel free to contact Doug by visiting his website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Doug_Daniel
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Walk-Away-From-All-Your-Crosswind-Landings&id=1768506

(Image courtesy of pmarkham. Released under a creative Commons attribution share alike license)

How much does a free flight cost?

I booked a flight today. The flight was from the UK to Spain sometime early next year. The reason I booked it: it was free.

That's right, free - the advertised cost for that flight was £0.00. With the imposed duties and taxes the amount I should pay is £20. A great deal. I was delighted.

Having made the, admittedly easy, decision to purchase I clicked on the site to book the ticket. It took me to a page I've never seen on airline booking sites before. It started asking questions:

• Was I going to be checking bags? Yes. So you'll need to check in at the airport. That's £4 each way for airport check in.
• How many bags are you checking in? One. That's £8 each way for the first bag and £16 each way for subsequent bags.
  
• Do you want to be on of the first to board the plane? Yes. That's £8 each way for priority boarding.
  
• Will you be taking any sports equipment? Yes, golf clubs. That's £25 each way.

Each question I answered added extra cost to the flight. Each question I answered reduced my faith in the customer service of the airline. Each question I answered annoyed me more and more.

The terms and conditions of flight for this airline is over 6000 words long. Each paragraph details something that either reduces the airlines liability, increases the passengers liablility or increases the cost. (note these are not the general terms and conditions, these are just the terms and conditions related to actual flights with this airline)

The terms and conditions of flight are where you find, for example, that this airline charges you for checking in at the airport. You can check in on-line for free, unless you have luggage in which case you will need to check in at the airport. If you want to take hand luggage (which is the only way to avoid the check-in fee), it should weigh no more than 10kg and not exceed the maximum dimensions of 55cm x 40cm x 20cm. (That's a little less than 2 feet by a little more than 1 foot by 7 inches deep). Thank God I'm not taking more than one bag on board, nor do I have children with cots and buggies. These would have been extra and - God forbid I needed to take my own oxygen - this would have cost me £100 each way.

So when they totaled up the fare, my 'free' flight was going to cost upwards of £100. As I stifled the desire to throw my Macbook out the window I clicked the 'purchase now' button... only to find another £4 added to the cost! This, apparently, was a 'processing fee' for paying by credit card. Over the internet. Which is the only way to pay this airline when booking over the internet.

If it costs £4 to book a flight over the internet, the flight is not free. It can never be free. The cheapest it can be is £4!

I've mentioned in the past how behavioural psychologists should do more work for the airlines. This airline surely doesn't understand customer behaviours.

Yes, £100 for a return trip from the UK to Spain is still excellent value, I understand that. But £100, a disgruntled customer and a misleading airline pricing structure, for a 'free' flight is not on.

What would have been nicer is to do the following:

• Cost of air fare: £180 return
• Are you checking less than 3 bags? Yes: Let's deduct £50
• Are you taking golf clubs? Yes: Price is included
• Are you wanting priority boarding? No: Let's deduct £16
• Are you checking in on-line? Yes: Let's deduct £8

Total price £100. Result: One cheap air fare. One happy customer and one airline getting exactly what it asked for.

(Picture courtesy of Irishflyguy. Released under a Creative Commons attribution, share-alike license)

Mach 1 ride on Concorde at Oshkosh 88!

(image courtesy of Dave Hamster. Released under a Creative Commons Attribution license)

It's not often I'll pimp a fairly low quality Youtube video here on the Flying Cafe. But I saw this video on Concorde and figured "What The Hell"

This is a download of a VHS video taken on board a BA Concorde back at the Oshkosh Air Show in 1988.

With the demise of Concorde a few years ago it's impossible for videos like this to be made any more. The high cost of doing something like sending a supersonic plane (one of only 13/14 in existence) to an air show made this prohibitive even before the plane was canceled. Now of course there are no airworthy versions left which means this is a time capsule to the past.

A couple of things to notice. I believe that even on regular flights the cockpit door was left open during the journey and people were allowed to wonder up to the cockpit as they desired (although I'm not sure how this changed after 9/11). According to Dave Gunson the Mach meter isn't actually attached to the instrumentation it's just one of the cabin crew cranking it up behind the scenes (although I'm pretty sure that isn't true). It is true that you can balance a 50p coin on the tray table as the plane transitions through the sound barrier and it will not fall over. It's that smooth.

Just to put the flight in the video in perspective, at the time the Concorde went out of service a transatlantic return ticket LHR to JFK retailed at around $10,000 (£6000). That equates to around £1000 ($1600) per hour for the flight. For this you got a narrow, cramped, leather seat, tiny windows and very little in terms of in-flight movies etc. But you did also get first class cuisine, free champagne, a view of the curvature of the earth from 60,000 ft, priority landing at LHR on the runway closest to the terminal (regardless of the runway in use) and the luxury of knowing that you have bought the one thing that money cannot buy - time: A 10am departure from LHR would get you into JFK at 9.30am, giving you time to hold an important meeting and catch the return flight to arrive back in London on the day you left.

I lived in London for many years and saw, literally, thousands of flights head over the city towards Heathrow. Almost without exception the only plane that made me and other Londoners stop and look twice a day was the Concorde. A fabulous plane.

Has anyone else reading this flown Concorde? Loved it? Loathed it?

Thanks to airpigz for the video which has recently been updated.

You might be a pilot if....

I found this post on the Airspeedonline blog and it made me smile.

It's called "You might be a pilot if..." and is a little close to the bone in certain areas. I have to admit I've done a couple of these (but I'm not saying which ones....)

For those of you who are UK based and don't get the Jeff Foxworthy reference read this.

Any others you would add to the list...? Drop them into a comment, please.

The UKGA has decided

The guys from the UKGA have now made a decision about how they want to proceed with funding and managing the site...

Dear fellow UKGA-er,

The lines are closed, the votes have been counted, and we can now reveal...

In our first email to you, we said that we wanted to find out just how many people would support us if we made UKGA a commercial site. Well, we've been absolutely overwhelmed by the many kind comments you've sent us, and by the pledges of financial support you've made. It's gratifying to know that even what we've done so far is proving useful to you.

On the basis of your commitments, we've decided to go for it. In the past, when it had to fit around other projects, UKGA moved forward slowly, and we're as excited as you are by the possibilities when we're working on the site every day.

Our top priority is to get UKGA on to a more stable and fast hosting platform, which we're already doing. Because of your support, we're testing our new server now, and we hope to move the site onto it during the next week. We'll be in touch over the next couple of days with details of the move. After that we will be making some immediate changes to the site, particularly to the NOTAM system. We'll be setting up a blog too, so that you'll be able to see what we're working on, what's coming up, and give us your feedback.

One area of concern that has been raised several times is that of what we're going to do with the forum, and whether it should be covered by a membership. We've decided that the forum should be accessible to everyone free on an ongoing basis. Likewise, the classified service has become very popular, and we don't want to stop that valuable service. Therefore, we'll also offer free classified adverts and hopefully extend this with an emailed classified newsletter. The other parts of the site will be available on a subscription basis.

So, the time has come for us to ask you to make good your pledges. As many of you know, we already have PayPal available on the site, which will let you pay by credit card or PayPal account. This is the fastest route, especially via the Paypal link on the site, as it will update UKGA automatically. If you prefer to go to paypal.com directly to send your subscription, please use the same email address that you use for UKGA, otherwise we won't know who has sent us the funds!

If you like, you can send us a cheque: UKGA, 297 College Road, Whitchurch, Cardiff CF14 2NW. You can also pay by bank transfer if you wish. Drop us an email and we'll send you our bank account details.

Finally, we'd like to say an especially warm thank you to everyone who has already sent a contribution. Several people on receiving our email immediately turned to PayPal and sent us a membership fee, without any questions. Thanks again to you all, and thank you to everyone who has supported us in the past.

For now, happy flying, and I can tell you that we're looking forward to delivering more great functionality at UKGA.

Nev & Phil

So there you go!

Well done, guys, looking forward to details of the subscription costs etc....

Most anyone can become a pilot

By Chris Bridges

The quest to learn to fly is a lot easier than what most people think. You don't have to become a commercial or military pilot in order to fly.

You can be part of general aviation, or the area of aviation where pilots fly for the sheer enjoyment of flying.

Today there are thousands of potential pilots, just like you, who are learning to fly. They come from all walks of life and have various reasons for wanting to learn to fly. Some fly to expand business opportunities, while others seek to attain careers in the aviation industry. Some are even looking for an activity that they can share with their family.

Whatever your reasons may be, there are some basic requirements that you will have to meet in order to fly solo (which is a requirement to get your your license

In the United States, you must be at least 16 years old (to fly solo), speak English, and pass a basic medical exam.

In Canada, you must be at least 14 years old (to obtain a Student Pilot Permit, 17 years old to obtain a license), speak English, and pass a basic medical exam. In Canada we also offer a Recreational License which takes half the time to get as opposed to a Private License, therefore it is cheaper.

In the United Kingdom, you must be at least 16 years old (to fly solo, 14 years old to start logging your time, and 17 years old to get your Private Pilot License), speak English, and pass a basic medical exam.

In Australia, you must be at least 16 years old (to fly solo, 17 years old to hold a Private Pilot License), speak English, and pass a basic medical exam.

That's all. So, as long as you meet these requirements, you can take to the skies.

Please visit www.learning-to-fly.com for a lot more information about aviation and flying, including aviation history, aviation employment, pictures of airplanes, experimental aviation (kit planes or home built airplanes) and aviation weather.

I am an avid supporter of flying, with a Commercial License, Multi Engine Rating, and Multi IFR Rating. My time in the air has been few and far between as of late but it doesn't diminish my passion for aviation and anything related to aviation. I wish to pass that passion on to others so feel free to spread the word.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Bridges
http://EzineArticles.com/?Most-Anyone-Can-Become-a-Pilot&id=1496377

Blind pilot guided to land by RAF:

A pilot who suddenly went blind while flying his plane at 5,500ft (1,676m) was guided in to land by an RAF plane.

A pilot suffered a stroke while flying, went blind as a result, and was guided down to a successful landing by the Royal Air Force.

The pilot was on a flight from Glasgow Prestwick Airport to Colchester, Essex when the incident occurred. He declared a mayday. Despite air traffic controllers' efforts, the pilot was unable to land
the plane at nearby Full Sutton Airfield near York and was directed to
RAF Linton-on-Ouse. A plane was scrambled from the airfield to fly alongside him and - with the aid of RAF controllers - guide him down to the runway.

With his limited sight he was unable to see the runway until immediately prior to landing, but managed to place the plane on the middle of the runway, slowing it down to a stop just before the end.

A scary experience, I'm sure, and one I hope nobody ever has to go through.

Kudo's to the RAF ATC. I've mentioned before in these pages that they provide an excellent service and this goes to prove the point.

Instructor Idiosyncracies

Over my years flying I have been fortunate enough to have been instructed by quite a limited number of people.

There was Aaron in Orlando who took me through my initial training. Then there was Simon at Thruxton who took me mostly through to my PPL check ride. The check ride itself was taken by Bob - a long time instructor and examiner. Since then I've done a couple of check flights and these have been taken with instructors I've not met before.

What is actually very interesting is the individual idiosyncrasies of the instructors themselves. Obviously my major influence was Aaron who took me for 75% of all the hours I've flown. I knew what he was looking for when flying, I was comfortable with his teaching style and we worked well together as a unit.

Simon was very similar. His teaching style was identical to Aaron's. He focused on the same things and conveyed the same sense of relaxation as Aaron. However, because of the differences in teaching between the US and UK he did tend to look at some things with a more critical eye than Aaron. This was good and I enjoyed it.

But having now taken 2 check rides with two other instructors it is obvious that there are 'pet' items that each instructor looks for.

For example. When doing a pre-engine shut-off, both Aaron and Simon would happily snap the key round to the off position several times to check that the magneto's cut out. One of my other instructors went apoplectic when I did that recently. He was convinced it damaged the engine and tried to stop me doing it.

Last week, for example I was doing a check ride, and as I turned downwind the instructor reminded my to do my landing checks. As I turned downwind! We had barely reached circuit height by then. I politely told him I usually left the checks until later, waited until we had turned base and started the checks. Then - as I dropped the Carb heat lever on - he put his hand over that and said 'Leave that on until we land now. The engine will be fine' Now I understand the issue with carb ice and how the heater is important - especially in cold weather - but I was sure that it is not recommended to leave the carb heater on for too long as it brings warm air directly from the engine bypassing the filter.

Ah well. It's the idiosyncrasies that make instructors different.

(Photo by Flyguy92586. Releases under a creative commons attribution, share-alike license)

The Future of UKGA......

As many of you will know I have been espousing the virtues of the UKGA web site for a while now.

It is an independent web site set up by a couple of guys who run it pretty much off their own backs.

However things have now come to a head and a decisive movement is needed.

I'll let the guys themselves tell you:

As many of you will know, devoting time to UKGA has been increasingly
difficult for Phil and me during the past few years, as we’ve juggled
the demands of family, challenging clients, and of course UKGA
development and maintenance. 

Indeed, it has been a source of
some frustration to us both that we’ve not been able to devote as much
time as we would wish to development and maintenance.  The pending
queue of content has quite a backlog, and our UKGA programming progress
is frustratingly slow.  Similarly, we’ve also found the financial
pressure of UKGA increasingly difficult to bear.  Although we’ve been
able to support UKGA for several years, it bothers us that we haven’t
been able to invest in new technology as we would have wished – hosting
platforms, bandwidth, new software and services, mapping, text
messaging, and so on, have all taken second place to our immediate
family expenses.

Unfortunately both time and money have become
even more precious recently, as I was made redundant two weeks ago. 
This was an unexpected blow, and it has certainly made both of us very
conscious of where our priorities – in time and money – have to lie.

But
we also see this as a fantastic, and perhaps one-time, opportunity for
UKGA and for us – to provide the world-leading service that we’ve
always dreamt of providing: near-instant comprehensive flight planning;
and to make UKGA the best resource possible for UK general aviation
pilots.

The only way that we can make this happen is for us to
devote ourselves to UKGA and its future, by making UKGA a commercial
enterprise.  If everyone who used UKGA this year (more than 4000 of
you!) paid a membership of, say, £25, we would stand a good chance of
being able to execute our plans fully. 

In practice, of
course, 4000 won’t subscribe, but we’d like to make this decision on
the basis of facts.  We want you to send a pledge to us to show
support.  If enough of you think we’re worth backing, we’ll throw
ourselves into it lock, stock, and two smoking programmers. 

Our
development plan includes drag-and-drop route planning, better NOTAM
mapping, terrain awareness & MSAs, more airfield mapping, W&B
calculation, take-off and landing performance, group management and
booking, and much more besides. 

Send us an email to pledge@ukga.com
to show your support.  We think it’s worth it.  Do you?  Let us know. 
If you want to talk to us about this decision, our operators (me and
Phil) are standing by: 07976 200186 or 07967 323316.  We’ll be happy to
hear what you think. 

Thanks to everyone who has helped us in the past, and we sincerely hope that we can make UKGA fly.

Nev & Phil

So there you go: cough up or potentially lose this excellent resource! £25 a year is very little: It will barely buy you enough aviation fuel to run your Cessna for 30 minutes, but it will mean keeping this excellent little site working for a good while longer.

Send an email to pledge@ukga.com. Show your support!

Qantas 747 depressurisation update

You may remember back in July that a Qantas 747 en-route from Hong Kong to Melbourne experienced a sudden depressurisation that ripped a hole in the fuselage just forward of the wing. You may also remember I decried the use of sensationalistic journalism in my post about this incident.

The Air Transport Safety Board preliminary report has been produced for this incident

Apparently one of the row of oxygen containers in the hold spontaneously exploded. The explosion had 2 effects:

1) It blew the hole in the fuselage causing a sudden depressurisation
2) It forced the oxygen container up through the floor of the cabin where it damaged an exit door and an overhead bin before falling back through the hole in the cabin floor and being sucked out of the aircraft through the hole in the fuselage.

So far there is no explanation of why the oxygen tank exploded.

As per the report there was no 'plummeting', just a normal controlled descent to a more suitable altitude. Nobody was hurt in the incident and procedure was followed correctly. In fact, according to industry experts "It may seem like the aircraft is going through a radical maneuver, and
it is radical compared to normal flying, but this is standard protocol."

Nothing to worry about. Move along, please......

Three Most Dangerous Landing Mistakes Pilots Make and How to Avoid Them

By Doug Daniel

Over-shoot, under-shoot, loss of directional control, wing tip strikes ... are all symptoms of mistakes made BEFORE the pilot touches down. Mistakes that are easily to correct - but not necessarily in a way you might think.

I landed at the Nuttree Airport in a Cessna 172 in 1968. I felt pretty smug. It was a very smooth landing, one of those landings that you could hear but not feel. Then a wind gust picked me up and I landed a second time on a parallel taxiway. The pilot taxiing in the opposite direction was kind enough (or perhaps stunned enough or frightened enough) to hold short of a turn-off so I could move over to the parking apron. I couldn't look him in the eye as we went past. Red-faced, I mumbled some excuses to my passengers that I didn't believe. I had just made the three biggest (and most common) mistakes a pilot can make when landing.

Determined to never let that happen again, I spend a great deal of time in the intervening 40 years thinking about how to avoid these mistakes. The NTSB says that a full 45% of the weather-related accidents are caused by crosswinds and gusts. I believe it. It is time to introduce some little known techniques that help prevent these accidents. But first, we should look at their causes.
Landing too fast is caused by flying the approach too fast or trying to force the airplane on the runway before it is ready. The solution is to fly a consistent approach at the same airspeed, picking a safe projected glide point (or PGP), and controlling the PGP until you land. But hold the airplane a foot or so off the runway until the airplane nose has rotated up to the landing attitude. Hold that attitude until the airplane lands. That way you will land at the right speed.

Failing to cross control in a crosswind leads to ground loops, being blown off the side of the runway (the MOST common cause of accidents in the United States), wing tip damage, or, in my case, flying over the infield and landing on a taxiway. To put it simply, cross controlling is using the rudder to keep the long axis of the airplane parallel to the long axis of the runway and using the ailerons to keep the airplane positioned over the runway. This guarantees that you will keep the airplane moving straight down the runway after the wheels touch.
Quit flying the plane before the plane is through flying is one of the most dangerous mistakes that a pilot could make. Its cause is lack of concentration. Its solution is good flying habits.


I was lucky at the Nuttree. If the crosswind had been coming from the opposite side, I could have been blown into a canal. Remember that just because the main gear is on the ground does not mean that there is no 'fly' left in the airplane. Also remember that if you keep the airplane just above the runway until it absolutely, positively will not fly any more, then it will an unusually strong gust to put it in the air again.
It is easy to be lulled into the bad habits that lead to these mistakes. When the wind is gentle and the runway is long, all will be forgiven. So the question is: how to keep these bad habits from developing?

I want to tell you about two exercises that have helped pilots more that I could have ever imagined. They are the 'very slow Dutch roll' and the 'controlled projected glide' point. Neither is difficult or dangerous. Both simplify and strengthen any pilot's ability to land.

The very slow Dutch roll is a simple exercise done at a safe altitude. It teaches two very important skills. First the pilot learns to continuously move the stick and rudders to control the airplane as conditions change, and second, the pilot learns how to cross control the airplane in the most extreme circumstances.
Here is how to do a very slow Dutch roll. Pick a point on the horizon and hold it steady as you change the angle of bank, airspeed and flap configuration. Maintain constant altitude. Change your bank very slowly. Continue to increase the angle of bank until either the aileron or the rudder is pushed to its limit. This is the angle of bank for the maximum crosswind that the airplane can handle. The cross controlled airplane slowly accelerates to the side for a minute or two. During this time, the pilot must move the flight controls continuously as the airplane accelerates to the side - an unanticipated benefit of this exercise.

Let me tell you about the projected glide point or PGP. When you approach the runway your eye will naturally gravitate toward a point on the runway that does not move in your field of vision. The phenomenon is much like when you are on a collision course with another airplane: it stays still in your field of vision but just gets bigger. Well, there is always a point on the ground where exactly the same thing happens. This is the point that you would glide to if you never made that last little flair to land. This is an extremely valuable concept that can save you many hours of landing practice. I never heard another flight instructor talk about it but I am sure that many pilots use this technique.

You can control the PGP with power and drag while keeping the airspeed constant. To move the PGP closer to you, reduce the engine's power or increase the airplanes drag - usually with flaps. To move the PGP away from you, increase the engine's power or decrease the airplane's drag

Use the two concepts together to make consistent, safe landings. Once established on final, use the center line of the runway as your reference point for very slow Dutch rolls. Use the ailerons to position the airplane on the extended centerline, the rudder to keep the long axis of the airplane parallel to that extended centerline. Move the PGP to the same place every time. I recommend the runway threshold. Consciously continue cross controlling until the airplane slows to a taxi.

These two simple techniques will get you to the same place on the runway every time in a landing configuration that compensates for crosswinds or gusts until the airplane is going so slow that you can taxi to parking.

Doug Daniel, respected flight instructor and author, recently wrote Flying Secrets, an extraordinarily popular e-book, operates a website for interacting with fellow pilots. If you want to learn more ways to refine your flying skills and get a *free report* on how even a PC-based flight simulator can help you fly better, ask his experts a question or just get the free report, click here now => http://FlyingSecretsRevealed.com/flying_questions/.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Doug_Daniel
http://EzineArticles.com/?Three-Most-Dangerous-Landing-Mistakes-Pilots-Make-and-How-to-Avoid-Them&id=1510027

Top 10 Private Aircraft

By Skye Lanse

When it comes to air travel, the rich and famous fly in their own private jets. Fitted with luxurious interiors to suit their affluent taste, these private planes such as Boeing, Cessna, or Convair, make the trips their wealthy owners more comfortable and enjoyable.

10. Donald Trump - Boeing 727-23

Originally operated by American Airlines, this 1968 vintage jet was reconfigured to hold 23, with pale leather armchairs, gold plated seatbelt buckles, oil paintings, and Waterford crystal lamps. The "Trump" logo on the side of the aircraft is 30 feet long, 4 feet high, and made of 23 carat gold leaf.

9. Roman Abramovich - Boeing 767-33A

This 767 may look ordinary on the outside, but its interior is reportedly outfitted with chestnut and decorated with gold. The aircraft can often be spotted at Luton Airport some 40 miles north of London, where Abramovich spends much of his time.

8. The Sultan of Brunei - Boeing 747-430

The Sultan bought this 747 brand new for at least $100 million and had it fitted with a special interior and features such as washbasins of solid gold and Lalique crystal at an additional cost of some $120 million. The Sultan has several other aircraft, but this is his largest.

7. Jimmy Buffett - Grumman HU-16 Albatross

This former military Grumman HU-16 Albatross amphibian aircraft owned by singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett is named "The Hemisphere Dancer". In 1996, it was shot at in Jamaica by local police who suspected it of carrying drugs.

6. Air Force One

The aircraft used to transport President George W. Bush on important state and domestic visits, Air Force One is a Boeing 747-200B that has been heavily modified with secure communications systems, electronic equipment, a self-contained baggage loader, front and aft air stairs, and the ability to refuel in-flight.

5. Mark Cuban - Boeing 767-277

Billionaire Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team, reportedly had custom-made seats installed on the aircraft that are large enough to accommodate the team's tallest players.

4. Elvis Presley - Convair 880

Named "Lisa Marie" after Elvis' daughter, this Convair 880 was customized with 28 seats instead of the usual 110. The tail of the now preserved jet was painted with The King's personal "TCB" logo, which stands for "Takin' Care of Business".

3. Bill Gates - Bombardier BD-700 Global Express

Owned by Challenger Administration LLC on Bill Gates' behalf, this jet can carry eight people at a cruising altitude of 51,000 feet for a distance of 6,500 nautical miles, a range that permits nonstop Tokyo-New York or Los Angeles-Moscow flights.

2. Wayne Huizenga - de Havilland Canada DHC-6-320 Twin Otter

One of the most rugged and reliable utility transport aircraft ever built, the unpressurized Twin Otter can carry up to 19 people and take off from and land on rough strips as short as 100 yards. This aircraft appeared in a seaplane chase scene in the James Bond film "Casino Royale".

1. Harrison Ford - Cessna 525B CJ3 Citation Jet

Harrison Ford pilots his own CJ3, which can carry six people in comfort for some 1,900 nautical miles. Ford is considered so good a pilot that the FAA asked him to be the spokesman for the runway incursion awareness and prevention campaign that the agency started in 2001.

Source: community.warplanes.com

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Landing a Plane - 10 Tips to a Greasy Smooth Touchdown

By Jonathan Money

It's said that any pilot is only as good as his last landing. Landing a plane on a runway is a complex process of maneuvers and control inputs that tests every student pilot to the limit. Even after flight training ends, a pilot will always aspire to make great landings - it's the one key part of flying where success can be definitively measured - either by a smooth, effortless touchdown... or by something entirely different.

When landing a plane, a multitude of things must be done all at once. And since your landing will depend upon outside factors (wind speed, direction, air temperature, etc...) as well, even the greatest pilot only has so much control over how the landing goes. No one makes a perfect landing each and every time, but with the following landing tips you can give yourself the best chance at impressing your passengers, yourself, and maybe even the tower operators too:

Make a Strong Approach - A great landing always starts with a great approach. On your downwind leg, already be at pattern altitude. Already be at the correct airspeed. Check your heading indicator, and make sure your plane is flying parallel to the runway heading. Doing these things in advance will free you up to really concentrate on your base and final legs - falling behind on these duties will have you playing 'catch up' with the entire landing process.

Concentrate - Flying with friends is always fun, but when it's time to land a plane the pilot needs to focus 100% of his or her attention on the landing process. All too often a conversation will continue all the way down to the runway, and the landing will always suffer for it. After calling your downwind, politely silence your passengers so you can give all of your attention to your altitude, airspeed, and position without any other distractions.

Stay Center - Learning to fly on a wide runway, staying on the centerline might not seem as important to you. As you visit smaller fields however, you'll learn that sometimes staying center of the runway is the only choice you have. After turning base to final, get lined up quickly. Concentrate on keeping the nose of the plane pointed down that center line, using small aileron and rudder movements to avoid drifting. When your touchdown comes, that's one less axis (yaw) you'll have to worry about, freeing you up to concentrate on the other two.

Use Flaps Correctly - Landing a plane correctly requires touching down in the right spot at the right airspeed. Getting to that position and speed is the hard part, but fortunately for you, you've got some friends to help you out: flaps. Make sure you're using your flaps correctly though, and not just automatically flipping them down at a specific time or point during your landing sequence. Learning to land requires drilling the pattern with constant repetition, and it's all too easy to just file flaps away in the back of your mental checklist as something "to do" on your base and final legs. The truth of it is, a pilot should use an aircraft's flaps in different configurations during different scenarios depending upon wind speed, wind direction, altitude, airspeed, and the length of the runway you're landing on. Setting your flaps too early will lead to a high approach, with you overcorrecting by dive-bombing the runway. Setting them late might keep your airspeed undesirably high. Don't feel you have to use all notches of flaps at all times either - in some situations it's best to land with partial or even (in very windy conditions) no flaps at all.

Experience is the best teacher here, and it will take flying time in that particular aircraft for you to grow accustomed to optimum use of flaps. Understand that it's not something that can be learned strictly from a textbook.

Use the Runway Numbers - When landing a plane the phrase 'aim for the numbers' is commonly heard, but seldom to pilots get to land on them. Most pilots are too busy watching airspeed and pitch to worry about where the numbers are, especially on longer runways with lots of room. Still, you can use the runway numbers to help get to your desired touchdown point if you spend some time watching them during your final approach. As your touchdown draws near, you should have a good idea if you're high, low, or right on target. If high, aiming toward a spot someplace before the numbers can help you drop a little altitude. If low, look a little further past the numbers to get your nose up. Adjust throttle where necessary to make the nose do what you need it to. This may seem like an obvious little trick, but if used during landing it can greatly help with your touchdown position.

SideSlip - An often talked about maneuver in any student pilot's textbook would be the sideslip. During landing, a sideslip can be used to bleed off unwanted altitude without increasing airspeed or having to divebomb the runway. By applying opposite rudder and aileron, the aircraft will slip vertical position without changing its direction of flight. If you're a student pilot, you're going to want to practice this maneuver a lot. It actually sounds trickier than it really is. As you advance in your flight training, you'll find yourself sideslipping during landings without even being conscious of doing it. Get comfortable with it though, because it's a good trick to have in your bag when you need to use it during a high final approach.

Attitude, Airspeed, Altitude - As the runway approaches, your focus will move to your primary instruments. Airspeed is critical here, as you want to avoid stalling at all costs. Make certain you maintain safely above minimum stall speeds for your aircraft's flap configuration, and also make sure you're not going too fast. Adjust the nose of the plane to keep the airspeed needle right where it should be, and use power to correct your height above the runway. If you monitored these three instruments during your base and final legs, you should be very close to your desired touchdown point when landing the aircraft.

Look Down the Runway - Looking down the runway when landing an airplane is another great tip to getting the timing of your flare right - it gives you a better reference to the true horizon than looking at the ground rushing up beneath you. It takes some practice, but eventually you can balance keeping your eye on the horizon, while peripherally watching your height above the runway. As you do this, your hands will be making subconscious adjustments to the control wheel that should smooth out your glidepath.

Flare, Float, and Throttle - Knowing when to flare is half the battle. Knowing how much to flare is the other half. Get both of those control movements right, and your wheels will grease the runway. During your flare, make smooth controlled movements with the wheel or yoke. You're very close to the ground now, and any large or jerky movements will be amplified with disastrous results. Once you do flare, you should know immediately if you're high or low. A low flare can be fixed by smoothly applying more back pressure to the control wheel. A high flare can be corrected by holding control pressure and applying slight power with the throttle. Never drop your nose suddenly or dramatically when landing a plane... if you flare too high, it's best to ride out the 'float' and apply power if needed to smooth out the touchdown. A good pilot always keeps one hand on the throttle during his landing.

It Ain't Over Yet - The last mistake made by some pilots is thinking their landing is over the moment their wheels touch the runway surface. To avoid that classification, remember to control the entire length of your landing. The rudder is key, as it now controls just about everything. Make your rudder adjustments small - especially just after touchdown when the aircraft is still rolling pretty fast. Also remember to turn your ailerons to adjust for wind direction, so as to avoid being buffeted around by crosswinds. Your landing isn't over until you turn onto the taxiway.

Landing a plane isn't easy... but landing an airplane smoothly and correctly is even harder. Just as you have good and bad days, you'll always have good landings and bad landings. Still, arming yourself with the right knowledge and practices can go a long way toward making great touchdowns. Using the tips above, you won't land perfectly every single time, but you should see yourself consistently make better landings.

Visit Student Flying Club for more flying tips including flight planning, aviation articles, and all kinds of flight training tools for the student pilot - including an online E6B Flight Calculator.

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Come fly the friendly... rails?

In one of those bizarre "Did I really read that?' moments it appears that Air France/KLM are going into the rail travel business.

The EU's rail traffic laws will be liberalised in 2010 allowing non state-owned firms to ply the tracks with their own services. Air France and Veolia are going into partnership to provide international high-speed rail services. Initially they will route between Paris and Amsterdam and Amsterdam and London.

The logic behind this is actually quite sound. Having spent many years as an international commuter (living in London and working in Frankfurt or living in Belgium and working in London), I know that the actual travel time from leaving home to arriving at a destination on such a heavily trafficked route is comparative on rail and air. Competitive rates on the trains coupled with rising fares on the airlines have caused business travellers to start looking at the train as a viable alternative to flying.

The service will potentially run using trains known as the AGV, which can carry up to 900 passengers at a speed of 360 km/h (224 mph). At such speeds, passengers would be able to commute between Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport and Schiphol airport outside Amsterdam in approximately 1.5 hours. That's not bad going at all. A car journey of the same distance would take over 3 times as long and a flight (although only scheduled for about 50 minutes), would probably take somewhere between 2 hours and 3 hours including delays and extended check-in times.

Look for this to occur in October 2010.

British Defense Technology Company Claims to Break Unmanned Flight Record

By Skye Lance

QinetiQ Group PLC, a British defense technology company, claimed on Sunday, August 24, that its ultra lightweight plane has broken the world record for the longest lasting unmanned flight.

According to QinetiQ, the aircraft, which is called the Zephyr, flew for 83 hours and 37 minutes straight. That is more than twice the official world record set by Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk back in 2001. It is also longer than the Zephyr's accomplishment last year, which was 54 hours of continuous flight.

QinetiQ, however, will not be celebrating anytime soon. The reported flight time of the Zephyr may not get into record books, because it did not meet the criteria laid down by the world's air sports federation, which is the body responsible for measuring and verifying air and space records.

"We were concentrating more on the flight than the record," said QinetiQ spokesman Douglas Millard.

The Zephyr, which has potential in the fields of reconnaissance and communications, is built from carbon fiber and features paper thin solar panels. It weighs 30 kilograms (66 pounds) and was launched by hand on July 28 in the Arizona desert in the United States. The aircraft was flown by autopilot and via satellite to an altitude of over 18,000 meters (60,000 feet), QinetiQ said.

During the day, the ultra lightweight was powered by the sun. At night, it relied on its rechargeable lithium-sulphur batteries.

QinetiQ stated that the Zephyr's more than three-day flight was witnessed by US and British defense officials. Still, it does not change the fact that the record is likely to remain unofficial.

http://community.warplanes.com

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The air traffic controller who gives after dinner speeches

(Surprisingly enough this post is the most visited individual post on this blog. I thought I would bring it back to the front again so that new visitors would be able to take advantage of it)

I've talked about this before but it's worth saying again: If you know an aviation enthusiast and you're looking for something to give them for a present, you can't beat Dave Gunson's "What goes up might come down"

Dave is an ex- East Midlands Air Traffic Controller who went into after dinner speeches when someone realised that you could talk about pilots and air traffic control in a very amusing way if you put the correct spin on it.

His most famous talk was to a bunch of merchant bankers in Birmingham (I think) which was recorded and released as a CD.

My favourite part, personally, is the discussion of flying on Concorde with the details of how heat causes it to expand and contract. Plus the Machmeter ("It's not really attached to anything. there's a stewardess at the front cranking it up manually").

This can be purchased from a number of places but Amazon is probably the easiest. Click here for a link

Enjoy!

NORDO!

Nordo is an acronym meaning "No Radio". It refers to a plane which has suddenly lost radio contact with air traffic controllers.

In an earlier post I asked the following questions: How many people, for instance, know what to do in the case of a complete radio loss? What Transponder code do you use? How do you approach an airfield to land without the radio? What do the signals mean?

I promised the answers in a future post so here they are: (The assumption here is that you are flying VFR with a transponder. If you are flying IFR the procedure is much different and more complicated. See the AIP for more details)

In case of a complete radio loss it is vital to let ATC know. The quickest way to do that is to dial in the correct transponder frequency. In the UK this is 7600. In most radar controlled ATC units this will automatically add a label to your aircraft signal which wil indicate "Radio Failure".

However it is useful to actually ensure you have had a radio failure. I remember on a recent flight I was returning to Thruxton and couldn't raise them on the radio at all. I tried several times, switching out of the frequency and back in. Then - on re-checking the radio - I realised I had missed their radio frequency by .25 Mhz on the dial. Once had rechecked I called them up again and they answered.

So the first thing to do is check your equipment: Check the frequency. Use a different radio if you have one. Use a different headset. Make sure your radio is actually receiving power (a lot of radios now have a separate power switch). Make sure the volume and squelch are at appropriate levels.

If you've done your trouble shooting and your radio is genuinely not working then squawk 7600 to let folks now. Find the nearest airfield and look for light signals from the ATSU.

Light signals:
The following light signals are standard:
Steady red: Give way to other aircraft in air. Stop if on ground
Red pyrotechnic light or red flare : Do no land, wait for permission
Red flashes: Do not land - aerodrome not available for landing (if flying). move clear of landing area (if on ground)
Green flashes: Return to aerodrome wait for permission to land (if flying). To aircraft: you may move on the manouvering area and apron. To vehicle: you may move on the manouvering area
Steady green: You may land (if flying). You may take off (if on ground)
White flashes: Land at this aerodrome after receiving continuous green light then, after receiving green flashes proceed to apron (if flying). Return to starting point on aerodrome (if on ground)

If you are an aircraft able to give light signal to an ATSU, these are the options
Red pyrotechnic light or red flare : May I land?
Steady green or flashing green or green pyrotechnic or flare: May I land (by night). May I land in a different direction to that indicate by the T? (by day)
White flashes or white pyrotechnic light or switching landing lights on and off or irregular flashing of Nav lights: I am compelled to land

Remember these, they could come in useful

Looking at Variable Pitch Prop Training

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the things you can do to improve your general level of safety while flying is to get further training. Yes, it's usually expensive, but it is also your life you're talking about so it's probably worth it!

How many people, for instance, know what to do in the case of a complete radio loss? What Transponder code do you use? How do you approach an airfield to land without the radio? What do the signals mean? Something like this could save your life. (* answers in a later post - stay tuned!)

On the subject of training I'm looking at doing some additional training related to variable pitch propellers. I have managed to ingratiate myself into a group running a Cessna 182 Skylane and the guy running the group is an instructor (and Air Traffic Controller) who will give me the necessary training.

I went up to see the plane over the weekend. It's a 1972 Skylane with Autopilot, Garmin GPS (yoke mounted), redundant radio etc, etc, etc. Also, because it has the Continental VP prop there is the extra lever in the throttle quadrant (not that Cessna's have a throttle quadrant as such, just a line of levers sticking straight out of the panel)

Hopefully I should be able to get a couple of hours training to work out the peculiarities of VP props. In addition to that the training should also allow me work out the best way to land this big, heavy beast (remember I'm used to flying little PA28's around the sky, this is a big step up for me). According to the instructor, landing is achieved by remembering that 'The 182 is actually a two wheeled aircraft for landing - the nose wheel is there merely to stop the prop from striking the ground".

Having spent 15 minutes sat in the cockpit and looking at everything it does remind me how familiar I am with the PA28 layout and how alien some of the controls are in the 182 (There's a whole section of the panel that has the autopilot controls!! The circuit breakers are hidden behind my yoke!! What's this panel with the knurled knob's on it near my feet??) no doubt it will all become clear in time.

More updates as they happen

Flying tip 4 - Radio comms

Radio communication is vital in todays aviation world.

An increase in air traffic - coupled with pressures in schedules and increased expectations from airline passengers - has resulted in more planes moving around the sky at any one time.

This has manifested itself in an increased workload on air traffic controllers. This was something that was pointed out to me on my recent trip to Farnborough's Air traffic control facilities.

What was pointed out again and again is the need for pilots to be in contact with controllers and for them to have good communications skills.

Here's a challenge for you. Take a small airband scanner to your local airport and tune in to the tower frequency. Listen to what is being said and then see how many exchanges completely follow the standard comms pattern defined by the CAA. For example, the use of pleasantries is discouraged and all altitude readings need to have an altimeter pressure setting read back with them. (i.e. "... level at 3500ft, 1012").

Now change frequency and listen to the local LARS or zone controller. When a new aircraft comes on frequency and is told to "pass your message", listen how many do it right.

The correct sequence is:

• Call-sign
• Aircraft type,
• Point of departure and destination,
• Altitude with altimeter setting,
• Intentions
• Request

How many times have you heard someone on the radio say something like "G-Mike Mike Mike Mike is at 3000 ft currently abeam Reading requesting flight information service.. Oh I'm a Cessna 150" only be to asked the point of departure and destination and intentions?

Todays quick tip then is "Learn the expected items to pass on a radio contact (along with what needs to be read back to the controller)"

It makes things easier for everyone AND ensures everyone has all the information needed for a safer journey

photo courtesy of Nite_Owl

Qantas plane plummets from the sky!

Talk about sensational journalism. I've just read a headline similar to the title of this blog post which talks about a plane "plunging 20,000 feet in terror" after a 10ft hole appeared in the side.

Now I'm not discounting any of the reports that have appeared in the press. I also know and understand that a hole that size in the side of a pressurised plane at altitude is not normal and needs to be dealt with. But I do believe that sensationalist reporting like that needs to be controlled.

Here's what we know as facts.

A Qantas 747 from London to Melbourne had taken off from Hong Kong an hour earlier and a hole appeared in the side of the plane. We don't know why. It caused a depressurisation which would have resulted in 2 things:

1) The oxygen masks would have appeared
2) The pilots would have executed an emergency descent to an altitude where the air was more breathable.

The aircraft touched down safely at Manila at 11.15am local time and all 346 passengers and 19 crew disembarked normally.

Anything other than that is pure speculation. A 20,000ft terror plunge is pure speculation and hyperbole

From the sounds of things there were no injuries, no damage to anyone and only a few passengers suffering from vomiting.

I'll keep an eye on this story for you. I'm interested to know what caused the damage ahead of the starboard wing which apparently penetrated the cabin.

The BBC appears to have the most well balanced view of the story at the moment

Farnborough

Well yesterday was the last day of the Farnborough International Air show 2008 and I blagged a ticket courtesy of a major aerospace manufacturer. No names but it was a bit of a stealth attack if you get my meaning. . .

Despite the fact that I live 10 minutes from the place and have done for 11 years, this was my first time at the show. The queues were quite long and I ended up parking in a different post code but I finally got there.

The interesting thing is that the airshow is actually more show than air on public days. It has something of a carnival atmosphere with children's play areas, fast food stalls, racing car displays, simulator rides and an inflatable castle/slide. It's only when you get deeper into things that you see the static displays and the exhibitor pavilions. Unfortunately most of those pavilions were invite only. And I didn't have an invite!

Air displays:
Running in parallel with all this were the air displays which were quite spectacular. I saw the Hornet, the Blades display team (awesome aerobatics from a bunch of ex Red Arrows pilots), the Navy Lynx display choppers - who flew backwards along the runway, in formation, against a strong crosswind- the Battle Of Britain flight - a Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster bomber making low passes over the airfield- the Hawker Sea Hawk, and the first flight of a completely restored Vulcan bomber.

To be honest the Vulcan was more impressive than I thought as it was very loud, very big and climbed out at what looked to be a very steep angle. A lot of people spent a lot of money putting it back together and they still need more money to keep it flying.

Static displays:
In a way I was a little disapointed with the static displays Don't get me wrong there were quite a few of them, but with one or two exceptions they were all 'Stand at a dstance and watch' displays rather han 'Get up close and personal' displays. The exceptions were the US Air Force Galaxy, Hercules and F15 displays - although they were only letting in small groups at a tie and the queue was almost as long as the one to find a parking space to get in! I got onto the Sirrus stand and looked at their new SR22 Turbo as well as the SR20. Also, despite what you may have read on the Farnborough website, the Boeing 777 and several of the other static displays were not there - at least not on the Sunday. However one welcome arrival was the Airbus A380 which was parked on the end of the cross runway (the only place it would fit). This too was open for inspection - although only for invited people, which was a shame. i watched it for about 30 minutes and saw 8 people wonder inside it. The theme of the A380 was 'Environmentally recyclable' and I had to smile at the irony of pushing an environmental agenda when there were fuel guzzling fighter jets and the old Vulcan bomber flying overhead....

By the way, Blades display team are actually a fully licensed airline which means that you can fly with them, as a fully insured paying passenger, in the front seat of one of their Extra's. How cool is that!

Technorati Tags: farnborough, airshow, air show

Why the airlines should hire behavioural economists

Scott Shane, A. Malachi Mixon III, Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University, has put forward a radical idea to help the airlines beat falling passenger numbers and higher costs.

He is recommending that airlines hire behavioural economists to understand how different framing of a problem can solve bigger issues. For example: How about the airlines paying passengers for NOT checking bag's in.

The principle works like this:

In a 'normal' situation, an average human considers benefits and losses on different scales. Thus finding $50 is proportionately more enjoyable than the pain of losing that $50, even though it's the same $50.

Knowing this he is recommending airlines change their pricing structures to take advantage of it.

At the moment you may buy an airline ticket for $150. Then when you get to the airport you check in 2 bags at $5 each. You ask for an aisle seat which costs another $5. During the flight you buy your $5 sandwich and $3 drink and spend another $5 on the headset to listen to the movie. In total your $150 flight has cost you $178.

So let's change the paradigm and take a behavioural economists approach to this:

You buy your ticket for $178. When you get to the airport you decide to check in only one bag. The airline refunds you $5 for the other bag not checked in. You still opt for the aisle seat but decide against watching the movie (which you've seen before). You get $5 back for not hiring the headset. You still have the food and the drink. At the end of the day your airline ticket cost you ($178 - $5 - $5 = $168). Overall you've spent more than the original $150 that ticket would have cost you, but you've spent less than the $178 you paid for the ticket. And, more importantly, you got $10 back off the airline.

From the airline's point of view the seat earned them the $150 they originally wanted for it, but they also made an additional $18 for the aisle seat, the food & drink and the one checked bag. Because this covers their costs they don't mind paying back the money to the customer and, on top of that, the customer feels better spending $168 for their $150 dollar ticket, than $150 for the ticket with 'surcharges' on top.

Refunds always beat surcharges, regardless of the overall cost at the end of the day.

I think this is a great idea. Richard Branson - are you listening....?

Braille Controllers.....

So I read in the papers that St. Mary's airport on the Scilly Isles has been advertising for a new air traffic controller. Nothing unusual about that you may think. However following equal opportunity guidelines response to the advert can be received in Braille.

Now I can think of numerous jobs where blind and partially sighted people would have no problem undertaking (we already have blind politicians and sportsmen/ women), but if I'm flying the crowded skies of Southern England (or even the sparse skies over the Scilly Isles), I would like to think that the person operating the radar could at least see it!

A spokesman for the Council of the Isles of Scilly, which runs the airport, said the alternative formats were offered on all job adverts.

(Phot courtesy of pne)

Fear of Flying

I got a note from a friend of mine in Australia recently. Regarding flying, he said.. "Would like to try it some time, though reading some of the other more recent posts makes me wonder how safe it really is!"

He was referring to posts I have written on this blog that mention accidents and incidents and, understandably it has raised a good deal of concern with him (and, no doubt, with other readers of his blog)


Let me tell you, there is nothing to be scared of when it comes to flying. Statistically it is still the safest way to travel. Statistically you are more likely to be hit by a meteor than be killed while flying (I'm not sure if that's true, but it illustrates a point!)

However: It is a well known fact that there are plane crashes every year. In fact there are quite a few plane crashes every year. A lot of them don't get talked about too much (small planes crashing in wilderness etc.). Some of them make the news, but not all (Colin McRae's helicopter crash last year and the Cessna Citation jet that crashed in Kent killing racing driver John Leslie). Mostly these get publicity more for the people who were on board than for the accident itself.

But there are, occasionally, large accidents that get coverage due to the sheer scale. The largest accident on record was the crash between two 747's on the tarmac at Tenerife in the 1970's. The Lockerbie bombing in the 80's and the 4 jets that went down on September 11th 2001 were terrorist attacks rather than accidents. TWA 800, the 747 that blew up over Long Island was an electrical short circuit.. the list goes on and on.

So let's put this in perspective. According to the National Safety Council, who have been logging US safety-related accidents since 1920, the odds of dying in an air or space related accident in the US in 2004 were 1 in 432,484. Compare this with the odds of dying in a car (1 in 19,216), pick-up truck (1 in 75,142) or as a pedestrian (1 in 49,139). What about "Inhalation and ingestion of other objects causing obstruction of respiratory tract" (1 in 91,340) or "Accidental poisoning by and exposure to noxious substances" (1 in 14,017) or "Assault by firearm" (1 in 25,263).

If you want actual data, 697 people were killed in aviation or space related accidents in 2004. That compares with 5976 pedestrians, 4018 motorcyclists, 15282 car occupants, 15494, 'Other and unspecified land transport accidents' and 17357 who were shot, stabbed or otherwise killed in an assault. And that's just the USA alone! According to the CAA in the UK, over the 1985-94 period, only 0.2 passengers were killed or seriously injured per billion passenger km flown by UK operators. This compares with 1872 on motorcycles, for example.

The fact of the matter is when you are in a large commercial plane the number of things that have to occur to cause a fatal accident are huge. It is very rarely a single issue that brings a plane down. It is usually a chain of events, missed items, mechanical issues and pilot error that all come to a point and cause the incident. Anyone who's watched National Geographic's "Air Crash Investigation' will know this. The Tenerife incident I mentioned earlier was caused by a combination of bad weather, no radar, tight crew schedules, an overbearing Captain who intimidated his crew, and a misheard radio communication. If any one of those had not been present the accident would have been avoided. Similarly, the TWA flight 800 crash was caused by the plane carrying an empty centre fuel tank coupled with decreased pressure from flying at altitude and a short circuit in a single wire (The empty fuel tank contained kerosene vapour which ignited when the spark from the short circuit met the lightly pressurised vapour). Once again a change in any of these circumstances would have prevented it (Standard operating procedure is now to keep fuel in the central tank to avoid the situation where vapour can form).

But when it comes to the smaller, general aviation planes of the type that I fly, the prospect of an incident is larger. The systems are simpler, but the pilots are less experienced (or more particularly they are less trained in all circumstances). This leads to situation where a single problem can cause an incident. In this years 'Clued Up' magazine from the CAA, Irv Lee talks about a carb icing problem he had which caused his engine to die and necessitate an emergency landing in a field. The cause of this was very simple: His student throttled back to start a decent without adding carb heat. As Irv himself says "That was the end of the flight". This wasn't a case of 3 or four things conspiring to cause an issue it was one simple mistake - a pilot error - as the student didn't follow his procedures correctly.

But again, to put all this into context, there were 14 fatal aeroplane accidents last year in the UK. The CAA believe that there were around 900,000 hours of general aviation flying in that time. That's not a bad ratio.

Of course a lot of the hoopla surrounding aviation accidents is causing many people to have a fear of flying. Most of this is to do with lack of control. But some of it is to do with not understanding how planes fly (I was on a long distance BA flight a number of years ago. As we rattled down the runway and the plane clawed it's way into the sky I shook my head in disbelief that 300 tonnes of metal, people and fuel could get airborne. The elderly lady seated next to me said 'Why are you shaking your head?"
"I fly upwards of 100 to 200 flights per year", I replied, "And I still don't really understand how it works. But it's not a problem as long as the pilot does" She smiled and leaned over to me 'It's OK", she said "The pilot know what he's doing. It's my husband").

One of the ways of combating this is to go on a fear of flying course. My mother took one of these recently. She used to hate flying, needed valium type pills to calm her down and remove the anxiety she was feeling. But she spent a day at Manchester Airport with British Airways and went on a 30 minute flight where the captain talked everyone through what was happening, and she nows flies 6 or 8 times a year to various destinations without any medication. It doesn't mean she likes flying, but it has removed her fear and anxiety.

So should my Australian friend be scared of flying in small aircraft? Absolutely not. They are statistically a lot safer than any other form of transport. Most occurrences are caused by pilots flying outside their comfort zone (into bad weather for example), and of the incidents that are reported, very few are fatal.

I'd rather be flying than in a car, personally!

(Graphic courtesy www.lumaxart.com/)
Technorati Tags: caa, GA, safety, aviation

Flying tip no. 3 : Carb Ice

What is carb ice: Carb ice is a phenomenon caused by cold air forming ice in the intake of your engine's carburettor. If enough ice is present it can completely cut off the air to the engine thereby causing your engine to stop (We'll go into why this happens later)

What removes it: Propeller engines have a function known as Carb Heat. This, basically, takes warm air from the exhaust and pipes it directly into the engine air intake. This has two effects

1) It removes any ice particles that are present and allows them to be ingested into the engine where they cause no harm
2) It provides warmer air to the engine which reduces it's effectiveness (it's a result of one of the laws of physics related to air pressure and temperature). This is why carb heat is not "always on".

When to use carb heat: Surprisingly enough carb icing can occur at any time of the year in just about any weather. All that are needed are two ingredients:

a) Moisture
b) A drop in temperature enough to freeze the moisture

Obviously in winter the problem is more obvious, but consider this: In a normal airplane engine intake the Venturi effect - whereby the air speeds up through the narrow intake causing a pressure change - can cause the ambient air temperature to drop by as much as 30 degrees centigrade. Given that the average summer time temperature for the UK is about 24 degrees you can see how carb ice can occur.

The most likely candidate for carb icing is on a warm summers day with good humidity when the pilot reduces power to descend from a cruise. Why?

It is caused by a combination of the sudden temperature drop due to fuel vaporisation and pressure reduction as the mixture passes through the carburettor venturi and past the throttle valve. In other words when you cut the throttle back to lose altitude it produces the two conditions needed for icing - The fuel vaporises and cools the air, and pressure in the venturi drops at the same time. If the temperature drops below the dew point then any moisture in the air will form water. If the temperature drops below the freezing point then this water will freeze.

There are many cases when carb ice should be used and the CAA safety sense leaflet Piston Engine Icing covers the cases in detail. But two points I will make as general tips:

1) Be liberal about applying carb heat before reducing power (don't be afraid to use it).
2) Don't keep carb heat on continuously (it uses air warmed on the exhaust and bypasses the air filter in doing so. This can ingest unwanted things into your engine!)

Amazing and breathtaking aviation pictures

For those of you who don't know airliners.net, it is a site containing user submitted aviation related photos. There are all sorts of (good and bad) aviation photo's on the site and I recommend a look around if this is what you're into.

The alternative is to visit this site that has collected a group of the most amazing pictures from airliners.net and published them in one place.

A lot of these are amazing because of what they represent (The threshold at Julianna Airport in the French Antilles, for example which has a beach where visitors vie to get as close as they can to the landing aircraft). But others are amazing because of what they show: A fleet of (now scrapped) Air France Concordes, or an American jet fighter at zero altitude with wheels up.

I would be interested to know your favourites.

Farnborough seeks to increase yearly movements

In news today Farnborough Airport (the largest dedicated business aviation airport in the UK) is looking to increase the number of aircraft movements it is allowed.

At the moment the local council is capping the number of movements at 28,000 movements annually. Considering this includes ALL weekend movements AND the airshow, this is a particularly small number of movements for such a large airport.

The reason the upgrade is needed is (as quoted by a Farnborough spokesperson)

"Between May 2007 and May 2008 we saw a 60% increase in airliner-size business jets at Farnborough alone,"

Not surprisingly the local council will need to look into this in light of complaints about noise, air quality and safety (Farnborough is, after all, surrounded on most sides by built up areas and approaches from the east are over heavily populated areas. The Westerly approach is less populated, but does overfly the Odiham RAF base).

According to Farnborough themselves they could accommodate 100,000 movements a year but will settle for about half that.

In my recent visit to Farnborough ATC I chatted with a few of the controllers there who said that they are under conflicting pressure from the users and the local residents. The users feel that the number of movements is artificially capped (and as such is causing them business issues) and the local users are, understandably, concerned about the affect of doubling the number of aircraft movements. Remember Farnborough generally deals with corporate/business jet aviation and - on my last visit there - had over 20 Gulfstream jets alone on the tarmac. We're not talking about weekend flyers in piper Warriers and Cessna 150's!

I'll keep an eye out on this one for you.

The qualifying cross country flight.. (Or how not to get lost when there's no street signs)

(picture courtesy Les Chatfield)

For many student pilots, the qualifying cross country flight (QXC) is a daunting experience. It's your first long flight alone, you're visiting airfields you might be unfamiliar with and - on top of all that - you've actually got to do the navigation!

No wonder many students dread the experience.

But never fear, in a few moments I'm going to give you a couple of tips to reduce the stress and eliminate the fear. First want to tell you about my QXC

I did my QXC in Florida. Now for those of you who've never been to Florida let me try and describe the land.

Flat.

Featureless

Flat and featureless.

Sure there are some towns there (Orlando being the main one I was focused on) but outside of that it's just flat and featureless. Occasionally you'll come across a body of water (actually quite a lot of bodies of water) but they are so indistinct as to be almost unusable for navigation. (As an exercise, go to Google Maps and type in "Land o' lakes, Florida", click on satellite and see what the ground looks like.)

Needless to say this makes the QXC a bit of a challenge. The key in this case is to make sure you are flying on the right track and keep a careful control of your timing. For example on the first leg of my QXC (Kissimmee to Ocala), I knew that I needed to position myself just left of Magic Mountain and take a particular heading for a length of time. This would bring me to the edge of Eastlake Weir which had hwy 42 running South and hwy 441 running west of it. The key was knowing that as long as I kept the direction and distance I would arrive at the lake. It was big enough to act as a navigation point and I could correct any drift as and when the lake came in sight.

Remember the key thing about the QXC: It's not meant to check how well you can follow a line on a map. It's meant to check how well you can navigate from point A to point B. This includes making navigation corrections when you go off track. As an example, when I first flew the QXC route I did it with my instructor. We got to Crystal River (which is a lovely place on the Gulf Coast with a friendly little airport) and the next stop was back to Orlando. However, as we took off from Crystal River my instructor noticed that the Gulf coast was actually a lot of reclaimed land that had huge, expensive houses on them, so we went for a little cruise over the bay to check out the houses.

Then I started navigating back to Orlando.

Of course at that point all my calculations were completely hopeless. I was starting from the wrong place and on the wrong heading. My instructor knew this, of course, and said nothing. I just followed my original track and kept checking the map vs the ground below to determine where I was in relation to where I should have been. About 15 minutes into the leg I finally located our actual track and was able to make adjustments. We made it back to Orlando in time to circle the airport for 20 minutes waiting for the business jets flying into Disney for the weekend to land!

Anyway back to the tips:
Tip 1: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate
It's the old adage. Make sure you fly the plane first and foremost. Keep doing your FREDA checks. Ensure you're flying straight and level at the height you planned and the speed you planned. There is no excuse for not making sure your number one priority is to actually fly the plane.

Tip 2: Plan, Plan, Plan
The key to making a good QXC is to plan, plan, plan. Have your route plotted thoroughly before hand. Mark it in pencil on your map - heavy black pencil so you can see it. At the start of each leg write the heading and expected flight time in a box as an easy reference. Mark expected landmarks you wish to navigate by (river and road crossings, major arterial highways, castles, masts, odd geographical features etc). Consult Google Maps or Microsoft Maps in satellite mode to see what the landmarks look like from the air. Have all the appropriate radio frequencies to hand. Draw a layout of the destination airports to know where the runways are and what the joining instructions are likely to be. Be prepared.

Tip 3: Fly the route before hand
Nothing beats having flown somewhere before to give you a feeling of experience. Your QXC needs to be at least 150nm to 2 separate airports one of which is 50nm from the other. This sounds imposing but really, it's a flight to an airport in the distance, a second flight to a nearby airport and then a long trek back home. If you think of it in those terms it's not so bad. With your instructor, find the ideal locations to fly to. He or she will help you with the planning of your pre-QXC flight and this will make the actual flight itself far easier.

Tip 4: Chose easy airports to fly to.
Depending on where you're located, it's not always easy to find good airports to fly to. But for your QXC you need fields that are not too big (otherwise you end up paying high landing charges AND have to deal with air traffic control etc. This can generally cut out places like Shoreham and Bournemouth) but not too small that they are hard to see visibly from the air (Flying to Popham or Old Sarum, for example is difficult if you don't know what you're looking for or where it is). Find a reasonably sized airfield with a hard runway if possible: Bembridge, Blackbushe, Thruxton, Wellsbourne Mountford, Oxford, or Lydd are good examples down South. Also find airfields that are not close to controlled airspace (Fairoaks is a lovely field with a long hard runway, but is under the Heathrow Class A airspace: it's an added distraction you don't need on your QXC)

Tip 5: Read Jeremy Pratt's 'Navigation Meteorology' part of the Private Pilots Licence Course handbooks.
Apart from having a wealth of information and additional tips he has also added a section called 'Visual Navigation - A Practical Example' (pp nav83 to nav91) which takes you through a complete flight using map extracts and photographs of ground features to help identify navigation features etc. This is extremely useful as a means of focusing the mind on the correct navigation items and the correct mindset.

Navigation in itself is not difficult. Flying an aircraft along a straight and level flight in itself is not difficult. Speaking to ATC on the radio in itself is not difficult. The difficulty comes when you are trying to do all three at the same time. This is what makes the QXC flight so daunting. Follow the tips above and these will, hopefully, give you an added level of confidence to offset the trepidation.

Autogyro!

So here I am at a very busy Blackbushe trying to avoid a load of cub scouts waiting for a quick local flight over their house and I see this Autogyro.

It's something of a first for me as I've never actually seen one live. In fact the nearest I've been to one is watching "You're Only Young Twice" with Ken Wallis flying Little Nellie across Japan. So it's something of a rarity to see a real, live version!

Wonder what they're like to fly?

Flying on nothing but fumes and... algae?

Boeing have recently announced that they are promoting the use of algae based fuels in their engines. Or to be more precise they are looking at using algae based energy sources as a means of replacing the worlds reliance on fossil fuels for aviation. The logic behind this is quite simple: Raw algae is fast growing and does not need fresh water. It also doesn't conflict with food quotas (a charge often leveled at biofuels made from corn, for example) This in turn won't drive up the price of food in the short term. With some experts predicting oil will rise to $400 per barrel this makes financial sense.

Of course it is one thing to test a particular fuel in a particular engine on a single flight (as Virgin Atlantic did recently), but in order to make Algae biofuel viable there has to be a supporting infrastructure according to a steering committee of the Algal Biomass Organization, a nonprofit that promotes and advocates for the development of commercially viable transportation fuels.

In order to achieve that viability, Algae-based fuels need a supply chain the committee says, adding such fuels are in the early stages of development. The organization aims to accelerate the development of such power sources.

Over the coming months both Air New Zealand and Continental will make test flights using biofuel in one of the engines, and Virgin Atlantic is hoping a trial can be performed using algae as a biofuel source next year.

How quickly before this filters down to the average Lycoming or Continental engine used in GA...?

Bembridge - Everything you've heard is true

(Photo courtesy PhillipC)

I've read a couple of reviews from folks who've flown across to Bembrdge on the Isle of Wight and, without exception, they are all extremely positive.

Obviously I had to go and check this out myself, in that case. So last Friday I took a Piper Warrior II out from Thruxton on a quick jolly over the open water.

The weather was absolutely fantastic, CAVOK ("Ceiling and visibility OK") with a nice North-Westerly wind that helped us on our way down to the coast. In fact total flying time per the plan was 28 minutes.

On the way down I connected with Boscombe Down who held on to me for the grand total of 2.5 minutes before handing me over to Farnborough. They had me squawk a different code and held on to me for another 5 minutes before telling me to 'Freecall Bembridge and squawk 7000'. All this when I was still just a little South of Lasham! I tuned to Bembridge and listened to their tower for a while. Reception floated in and out as we passed over the South Downs at 2000ft heading towards Portsmouth and the Spinnaker Tower.

Passing over the Spinnaker Tower was great. I dipped the wing for a good look as we passed and headed out over the water.

I had researched the field at Bembridge quite thoroughly and knew the layout, the frequencies and the procedures, so it held no terror for me. However, the one thing I wasn't 100% sure of was the exact location. Sure, I knew where it was in relation to Bembridge the town, and the nearby coast. I had checked out the view on Google Maps to determine where it was in relation to other parts of the island. But when approaching over the Solent at 2000ft the perspective was different and, of course, distance was compressed. Nonetheless I headed for the general area that I knew the airfield resided in.

From the vantage point I had I could see a feature on top of a small hill almost directly ahead of me. I decided to use that as a navigation focus and head towards it. I believed the airfield was beyond that and to the right. Aiming for the hill gave me something I could use as a turning point to head inland to the field.

As we left Portsmouth I called Bembridge Radio who gave me the airfield information (Runway 30 Right hand circuit in use) and the circuit traffic (One on approach). The standard approach to Bembridge is a high pass along the runway with a break at the end (either left or right depending on which runway is in use) and then a drop down to circuit height on the downwind leg. Knowing that there was only one other plane in the circuit I requested a right hand base join instead. The permission came back 'No problem. Follow the C172 on finals'

About this time I was approaching the feature on the small hill when I realised that down below me (and about 3 miles ahead) was a C172 passing left to right. I followed its track and saw the airfield to my right this side of the feature I was using for navigation! I quickly made a left turn and dropped the plane down (using copious Carb Heat, of course) to swing in behind the C172 and make the approach.

Bembridge is a single, hard, runway a couple of miles inland from the coast. The coast at that point is steep and rocky and the land behind the coast rises and falls with small wooded areas between the coast and the runway. In addition to this there is a road that crosses the airfield just short of the runway threshold. Having researched the airfield I knew that this would cause an interesting approach. I was right. The hills cause the pilot to think he's lower than he is and start to lift the plane a little (even with the Bembridge PAPI lights), and the air current over the hills will lift the plane then drop it over the other side.

With a little bit of hill induced windshear and good reliance on the PAPI approach lights I planted the PA28 down past the numbers and casually braked to a stop about 2/3rds of the way down the runway.

"Welcome to Bembridge" came the voice over the headphones. "180 degree Trackback and take the first hard left to exit the runway". I complied, following the hard taxiway down to the HUGE field that serves as parking for visiting aircraft. I was given "Row Alpha" to park on and stopped the plane just in front of terminal building.

The landing fee was £10 which I paid at the cafe checkout along with my coke and Yorkie bar. Security were very accommodating and showed me where to sign in. I spent 2 hours in Bembridge sat on their decking area sipping a cold drink. Bembridge is home to the Britten-Norman aircraft company and they have several examples parked on the grass. They also service Cirrus aircraft and the mechanics were at work on one of them when I arrived.

Two things of note:

1) In the 2 hours I was there they flew two planes out for checks after servicing (a Cirrus and a B-N). I saw the whole of the Cirrus flight and I can tell you that approach he made was so low I swear he just missed a truck on the road before the threshold!

2) Bembridge must be a lot trickier in a Cessna than the Piper I flew in. For over 40 minutes I watched 2 Cessnas (a 150 and a 172, obviously pilots under tuition) doing circuits and almost without exception they came in high and fast every time, floating down the length of the runway before landing. In fact at one point the C172 was so high on approach that he missed the airfield completely and ended up going around. Everytime they crested the hill short of the Runway 30 threshold they would balloon up causing the pilots to drop the nose radically to lose height. I was convinced at one point I was going to see a prop strike because one circuit was so steep on final I was convinced he would bury the nose in the ground. Obviously the instructor recovered that one and earned his salary!

The return journey was pretty uneventful. I routed west from Bembridge over Cowes before turning back to Portsmouth and retracing my route North around Solent airspace. I was actually tempted to route directly through Solent controlled airspace to Thruxton but I had heard from an ex-controller that Solent hates in when GA planes do that. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

Just North of Portsmouth I contacted Farnborough for an FIS (Flight Information Service) only to be told to standby. It was VERY busy on the Farnborough LARS with it being a Friday afternoon/evening and I could hear the controller handling several planes and the traffic into and out of Farnborough itself. I waited for him to get back to me but he seemed to have forgotten about me so I kept a listening brief and made my own way back to Thruxton.

Flying time: 40 mins.